International Year of Millets in 2023

Context: Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shri Radha Mohan Singh has said that the 160th session of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Council, currently underway in Rome, approved India’s proposal to observe an International Year of Millets in 2023.

About:

This international endorsement comes in the backdrop of India celebrating 2018 as the National Year of Millets for promoting cultivation and consumption of these nutri-cereals.

This is further supported by increase in Minimum Support Prices (MSP) of millets. Millets consists of Jowar, Bajra, Ragi and minor millets together termed as nutri-cereals. The MSP of Jowar has been increased to Rs 2450 per quintal from Rs 1725, Bajra to Rs 1950 from Rs 1425 and Ragi to Rs 2897 from Rs 1900 per quintal from 2018-19.

Skoch Awards

The SKOCH Award covers the best of efforts in the area of digital, financial and social inclusion.

It encompasses the best of governance, inclusive growth, excellence in technology and applications, change management, corporate leadership, corporate governance, citizen services delivery, capacity building, empowerment and other such softer issues that get normally lost in the glamour

Context

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India has been conferred the Skoch Award for National Significance

Details

The award has been conferred on the Ministry considering its purpose and critical role played in installing about 73 GW renewable energy capacity in the country.

With 21 per cent of total installed capacity, within the year renewable energy grossed a magic figure of providing one billion units of electricity in the country.

India ranks 4 in the world in wind energy capacity and 5th in solar & total renewable energy capacity installed in the world.

Global Hackathon on Artificial Intelligence

Context: NITI Aayog is partnering with Perlin – a Singapore-based AI start up – to launch the ‘AI 4 All Global Hackathon’, With the vision to further expand the idea of‘Artificial Intelligence, AI for All’ articulated in the National AI Strategy.

About:

The hackathon will be run two stages with Stage One ending 15 January 2019 and Stage Two, which will only include shortlisted participants from the previous stage, will conclude on 15 March 2019

he first stage will invite ideas for use cases of multi-party computation in areas such as Healthcare, Education, Agriculture, Urbanization, Financial Inclusion.

The second stage will call for these ideas to be matured and developed, with a focus on privacy preserving AI and distributed computing.